Walnuts Are Drugs According to the FDA

Those walnut brownies baking in your oven are jam-packed with drugs! What? Where? The nuts. Yes, the FDA even calls them a “new drug.” The New American Magazine reports that the FDA wrote a nice little letter to Diamond Foods stating, “‘Your walnut products are drugs….they may not legally be marketed…in the United States without an approved new drug application.’ The agency even threatened Diamond with ‘seizure’ if it failed to comply.”

You might be wondering why the FDA decided to jump down Diamond Foods’ throat while there are plenty of other companies that sell walnuts. The reason the FDA waged war on Diamond Foods is because the company took measures to educate their customers on the researched health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts — reducing the risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer. According to The New American Magazine, Diamond Foods provides this information on its website and packaging. Diamond Foods claims that their data is substantially supported by scientific research and that Life Extension magazine features 57 articles depicting the benefits of walnuts. They add that ‘The US National Library of Medicine database has nothing less than 35 peer-reviewed published pieces supporting that eating walnuts is beneficial for vascular and cardiac health. Despite all of this data, the FDA is still not satisfied. They wrote Diamond Foods saying:

“We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. [The products are] misbranded [because they] are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.”

You heard them. The FDA thinks you need medical guidance on how to eat walnuts. A member of the Life Extension magazine team by the name of William Faloon says he thinks he knows why the FDA opposes educating the public on the health benefits of walnuts and other natural foods that are actually healthy for consumers. The first reason he gives is that junk food manufacturers who, he says, lobby the federal government will bring in more revenue. According to The New American Magazine, The second reason Falloon states is that “by making it less likely that Americans will consume healthful foods, big pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers stand to gain by selling more ‘expensive cardiac drugs, stents, and coronary bypass procedures’ to those made ill by their diets.” Hopefully neither of the latter propositions is the case because that would be terribly disturbing. Until Diamond Foods works out the kinks with the FDA we can just buy walnuts from a different compnay.